NORTHBRIDGE — When it looked as if the Old Brick Mill was going to be only a relic of what it once was, its bronze bell was given to Old Sturbridge Village.

That was back in the 1970s, when the mill in Northbridge that served as the first industrial structure for what later became one of the two largest textile preparatory machinery producers in the world had come to its more recent business use as a producer of rings for those machines.

That in itself had been a venerable subsidiary enterprise for nearly a century. It was in the 1970s that Alternatives Unlimited took over the Old Brick Mill and other buildings once used by the Whitinsville Spinning Ring Co.

Since heading up the care-giving association in the 1970s, Dennis Rice has seen his vision of an integrated community — for clients and the general public — grow into a reality. With the support of others, he has created a museum out of an old forge, an arts gallery dedicated a year ago to the late Spaulding Aldrich, housing for clients, a theater whose foyer overlooks a piazza and the Mumford River, and both thermal and water turbine energy generation to make the whole operation green.

Alternatives hired a British architect for much of the renovation and has drawn international interest in the merging of historical rehabilitation, new enterprises, and the promotion of an overarching ideal to benefit the operation’s clients. Although at first Old Sturbridge Village was loath to return the historic bell, the fact that Alternatives was restoring the mill in such a creative way led it to change its mind about keeping the bell.

So last week the 1833 bell sat smack in the center of the new piazza. George Brown, who was general manager of the Spinning Ring Company for many years, wrote a letter to OSV suggesting the bell be given back.

Rice also asked for its return.

It took a while, but there it was, touchable if not yet ringing out the hours for workmen to show up at the factory, for signaling the start of the dinner hour and the end of the work day.

But although everyone wears a wristwatch these days, there is nothing like a deep-toned bell to set an atmosphere.

“Alternatives is very grateful to the board of directors and administrators of Old Sturbridge Village,” said Rice.

He said the 300-pound bell has to be tested for its “ringability” before it is hoisted into the cupola.

Alternatives received a $160,000 matching grant to restore the cupola and bell. Only $20,000 remains to be raised to match the $160,000 donation, he said.

The bell is an historical gem. The rim is at least two or more inches thick.

The Old Red Brick Mill dates back to 1826, so this particular bell was put up later, perhaps as early as its casting and testing around the early 1830s.

The bell was cast by George Handel Holbrook, who apprenticed to Paul Revere in Boston. After learning the exacting trade, Holbrook struck out on his own.

G. H. Holbrook cast bells and his father, also George Holbrook, oversaw the tuning and installation of his son’s bells. There is also a Holbrook bell in the Linwood Mill, built in 1866.

The Red Brick Mill is widely considered one of the best-preserved buildings in New England.

On hand for the unveiling of the Holbrook bell next to what is hoped will be its restored site atop the old mill were local historian, teacher, bee expert and historical impersonator Kenneth Warchol. He wore clothes, including black frock coat, top hat and spectacles, intended to resemble those of Col. Paul Whitin, who was a prime mover of textile manufacturing in the Valley from his apprenticeship in the 1790s to the founding of a new company by his wife Betsy Fletcher Whitin and sons in 1831.

Thomas Kelleher, curator of Old Sturbridge Village, was also there.

Rice also welcomed two descendants of the founder of what later became Whitin Machine Works — Harry Whitin, recently retired editor of the Worcester Telegram-Gazette, and James Whitin, a brother, who has his own New England textile business.

Other than his brother James Whitin, the Whitin “family is pretty much out of textiles,” said Harry Whitin, who resides in Westboro. “We had seven generations in the textile business.”

“I think it’s great, kind of like a capstone of the restoration] project,” said Harry Whitin. “Restoring the mill is a wonderful thing for the community… It gives it a focus that incorporates history and the multiple uses of the [mill] in the present with the future [in creating] energy.”

Paul Whitin was a blacksmith with five sons, Harry Whitin noted. “He founded Paul Whitin & Sons that spun off other companies. “Cora Berry Whitin did a history of the family that had chapters with subheads,” Harry Whitin said.

“One of the subheads said: ‘It’s a fine thing to be descendants, but the glory belongs to the ancestors.’”